Women and Gender Roles

I thought Burdekin’s idea of women and their role in society in this book was surprising. Although I knew before reading the book that women in this society were going to be belittled but I never expected that they would be treated like animals. Burdekin was very smart in the way she wrote this book and I enjoy that this book is centered around women even though all the main characters are men. Furthermore the idea that the woman gave up their rights submissively because they thought they were doing their duty is interesting, and it shows what can happen if women do depend on men to make the decisions for them. The women interestingly enough do this hold just an inkling of power over men in this book because they are the ones that can repopulate the world. This makes me think about women today and the struggles that we are still dealing with. Women are by no means treated as animals like they are in the book but there still are aspects in our society where men are seen as superior. For example the creation of gender roles that is, teaching boys to be tough and play with boy appropriate toys and vice versa. Also gender roles stem to the work field, for example nurses are mainly women while engineers are mainly seen as a man’s job, and women still get paid less than men in a lot of job positions. However there are both men and women fighting for equality in order to eliminate those gender roles and to create a society that is both controlled by both men and women